HOUSTON -- The visitors' path to the team buses here snakes through a narrow, concrete-housed hallway underneath Minute Maid Park, a winding walk through three sets of double doors and right past the home clubhouse of the Houston Astros. A place which, early this morning, could have been confused for a nightclub, with music thumping through the other side of the wall on a never-ending loop, and grinning patrons intermittently emerging in damp disarray to collect themselves.
This was the journey that Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres and the other Yankees had to make, one last in-your-face reminder that their season is over, and that the Astros -- who have now knocked the New York Yankees out of the MLB playoffs in three out of the past five seasons -- are moving on to the next round.